


Artemis

by IAmTheNightman98



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: F/F, Just assume everyone is a lesbian, Lesbian AU, Multiple Pairings, Sic-fi, Space AU, i suck at summaries, in a kite-esque multi-chapter style, this is just a whole lot of lesbian shenanigans in space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-07-23 09:24:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IAmTheNightman98/pseuds/IAmTheNightman98
Summary: Brooke Lynn Hytes is the newly appointed commander of the USS Artemis - NASA’s first all female mission to Mars.Join her and her crew on their eight moth voyage through space as they attempt to navigate not only the dangers of the red planet, but the complications of personal relationships along the way.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> The segments in the various narrators points of view are not in chronological order.

**_Scarlet_ **

[OddlyEnough] 4:15pm: Have you heard of the USS Artemis?

[TheWorldLovesMe] 4:19pm: I’ve heard rumours. 

[TheWorldLovesMe] 4:20pm: Why?

[OddlyEnough] 4:26pm: She launches in six months. I’ve had my shoulder tapped to be pilot. 

[TheWorldLovesMe] 4:29pm: You’re fucking kidding me? Yves that’s amazing. 

[OddlyEnough] 4:32pm: It gets better. 

[OddlyEnough] 4:32pm: I need a medic. 

[OddlyEnough] 4:33pm: One with a specialist knowledge of EDS. 

[OddlyEnough] 4:35pm: :) :) :)

[TheWorldLovesMe] 4:39pm: Call me. Now. 

Scarlet stares at the mobile in her hand for no more than thirty seconds before it lights up with Yvie’s name and she answers on the first ring. 

“Tell me this is one of your stupid jokes that I never understand,” she laughs, shaking her head in disbelief. 

“No jokes here, chemistry lady. I just got done talking to the Mission Commander. Artemis launches early next year and they want me to pilot the bitch.”

Artemis has been a project in the works at NASA for as long as anyone could remember. Ever since the dawn of new age feminism, the idea of an all female mission has been on the cards. Technically, there was a time when every astronaut on the Space Station was a woman, but that was a happy coincidence. Artemis would not be a coincidence. No, Artemis is to be the first all female mission in space exploration. The destination: Mars. 

Scarlet never believed NASA would go through with it, let alone that her best friend would be the fucking pilot. 

“And the stuff about you needing a medic, is that real too?”

“God’s honest truth, baby,” Yvie tells her, and Scarlet can practically hear her grinning through the phone. Scarlet doesn’t have time to think about the logistics of taking eight months out of her life to go on the trip. Or the fucking  _ wedding  _ she’s going to miss. Or how she’s even going to attempt to explain the decision to Adrian. Because she’s screeching and laughing and crying all at the same time. 

Just over ten years ago, when they’d been college roommates, Scarlet had come home from a shift in the ER to find Yvie sobbing on her bed because NASA rejected her application. They said that Yvie was unable to be a pilot because there was not enough research into the effects of space travel on persons with EDS. She’d been devastated. Scarlet could’ve helped her find a new career choice, or told her that she could apply to NASA but never fly, but she did neither of those things. The ableist, rigged system had fucked over her best friend and she wasn’t going to take it lying down. So, she changed the course of her studies and published a paper on how to combat the effects of space technology on individuals with syndromes that weaken connective tissue. 

It had been a long battle to have Yvie accepted into NASA, but Scarlet would do it all again just to see the look on her face when she was asked to co-pilot a shuttle to the International Space Station. Her first flight had been seven years ago, and she’s been exploring the stars for the both of them ever since. Scarlet never wanted to travel, she wanted to be a doctor and settle down into the white picket fence, two kid family of every American dream. She’d moved to Washington and taken a job as a medical doctor for NASA, which is as far from New York as she’s ever wanted to go. 

Until now.

Because Yvie needs her. Eight months will be the longest she’s ever been away from Earth. She needs a medic that she can trust to listen to her needs. And, probably more importantly, she needs someone up there with her that isn’t going to be scared off by her no-bullshit approach to life. She needs a friend and, of course, Scarlet is going to follow. 

-x- 

Scarlet is practically vibrating with anxious energy by the time Adrian gets home from work. She’s practiced the conversation countless times in her head, but still she can't find the words to say  _ we’re going to have to postpone our wedding because I agreed to take part in an eight month long space expedition without talking to you about it first , _ without sounding like a complete asshole.

When he eventually walks through the door, he’s hours late and he smells like overpriced whiskey. He blames it on the stresses of working in congress, but deep down Scarlet knows that he could never work a day in his life and still find a way to keep her waiting. She’d said yes to his proposal last year because he’s the safe option. He’s the option that allows her to settle down and not think too much about everything that she’s missing out on, because between them they earn good money and they have a lot of friends and they don't give themselves a chance to take a step back and ask themselves if this is what they really want. The sex is fine. 

Scarlet is good at keeping herself composed. When she has to tell an astronaut that they’ve reached the saturation point for acceptable doses of radiation and will never fly again, she can take a deep breath and detach herself from the situation. But as she’s telling her fiancé that she’s chosen Yvie over him, there’s no way to detach. Her voice trembles and the words come out jumbled. In the grand scheme of things, a strong relationship should be able to withstand having time apart. But their relationship is a house of cards and this is the puff of air that will send the whole thing tumbling down around them. 

“You’re not going. I need you here,” Adrian tells her through gritted teeth. 

But he doesn’t mean  _ I need you  _ in the way that all partners want to be needed. He means  _ I need you to be my trophy wife. I need you to remember my sisters’ birthdays and keep the house clean and take my suits to the dry cleaners, even though you also have a demanding job. I need you to keep up the facade that we’re okay, because if I have to suffer then you should suffer with me.  _

Scarlet shakes her head and takes a step away from him. He’s never raised his hand to her, he never would, but she knows that if he gets to close he will stroke her face and tell her he loves her as he begs her to stay, and it might just be enough to change her mind. Because it hasn’t always been this way, she used to love him. Or at least, she loved the idea of him - either way, there was love there. And if he manages to tap into the part of her that is still praying their relationship will work out the way she’d planned, then she’s going to be trapped here for the rest of her life.

“I’m sorry, Adrian. Yvie needs me more. We can rearrange the wedding for fall next year, when I’m back. You wanted a fall wedding, right?” She smiles at him, but tears are brimming in her eyes. 

“No, Scar. If you do this then the wedding is off. What will people think of my work in Congress if I can’t even keep my wife on the goddamn planet?”

She laughs, because maybe a part of her wished, just a little, that he would ask her to stay for something other than selfish reasons. Then she shakes her head again and she knows that with that tiny movement, their six and a half year relationship has ended. But just because the relationship has ended, doesn’t mean the conversation has. There’s yelling and tears and harsh words followed by pathetic apologies. They fuck. He thinks its make up sex, she knows it’s break up sex.

And then she shoves some clothes into a duffel bag and jumps into her car and speeds across town to the only place she feels loved anymore. At once, her life is a vast, glowing, empty page. She can do anything she wants. It’s past midnight when she arrives, but Yvie opens the door and pulls her out of the rain. She can’t tell if she’s laughing it crying as Yvie takes out a bottle of dark rum and pours way too much into two mismatched glasses. 

“I think it’s over for good this time,” Scarlet tells her, because they’ve been here before and it never usually lasts. 

“It’s about fucking time.”

  
  


**_Trixie_ **

She adjusts her glasses with a squint as she looks over the briefing papers in her hands, then looks back up at Kim. “For real, Artemis is flying? I never thought I’d see the day.”

Kim laughs and shakes her head. “Jesus, girl, you’re way too young to be saying shit like that.”

Trixie laughs, loud and uncouth, because she’s not wrong. At twenty nine, she has no business talking with a sense of nostalgia about a project that began before she was born. But the point still reigns true, she never thought she would see the day that the USS Artemis and her all female crew would launch. 

She looks down at the papers again, the specs for the ship are incredibly dated. She’s almost certain they don’t make them like this anymore. They’ll be lucky if they can find anyone skilled enough to pilot this thing. “How long do we have?” 

Their job is fairly simple. The Mission Commander will tell them what the ship needs to be capable of - how many crew members it needs to hold, what research facilities are needed onboard, that type of thing- then the specialist engineers will make sure it does exactly that. Like elves in Santa’s workshop, only without the Christmas cheer. But the cockpit design for the Artemis is one that Trixie hasn’t seen in quite a few years. 

“Four months until testing, six month until the launch,’ Kim tells her. 

Trixie shakes her head. “Can’t be done. If I were you, I’d take these papers back to-“ she looks down at the name on the forms, “-Mission Commander Hytes, and tell her that there’s no way we can build something like this so quickly.”

She’s never heard of Hytes before, which figures. It’s usually the brand new big shots that come in here with unrealistic demands in an attempt to do something that's never been done before. At this stage in space travel, if something has never been done before, there’s probably a reason. 

“No, Trix, you’ve got it wrong. Look at the plans again,” Kim insists. 

Trixie looks down at the papers and can’t see anything that she hadn’t seen the first time. She looks back up at Kim with a shrug, and Kim grins. 

“Hytes doesn’t want us to build a new ship, she wants us to remodel an old one.”

Trixie shakes her head in disbelief, because, fuck, Kim’s right. 

Trixie had always wondered why NASA had decided to name the all female ship, Artemis. In Greek mythology, Artemis is the twin sister of Apollo. And Trixie thought it seemed a little too on the nose to simply relaunch the Apollo programme with an all female crew and the name of his twin, but Hytes is either a genius or a madwoman, because that’s exactly what she’s planning on doing. Right down to the ship itself. 

She’s submitted plans for a remodelled version of the Apollo Thirteen craft, only with slightly more modern amenities. Trixie smirks to herself because she can see Hytes’ vision with crystal clarity. She wants to say to the world,  _ look at us. We’re going to do exactly what the men did, but we’re going to do it better.  _ Trixie wishes that she would’ve never wimped out on the training to become the type of engineer that accompanies the ship on her flight, because she knows that what Hytes is doing here will go down in history. 

-x-

It isn’t until two weeks later, when the crew list goes live and she realises the identity of Vice Commander the mission, that she changes her mind. She doesn’t just wish she could be on the flight, she knows that she’s going to do anything to make sure she gets onto the Artemis’ crew. 

Katya Zamolodchikova.

The woman is legendary. She hasn’t flown in fifteen years, and with good reason. Trixie, along with every other person in NASA, assumed that Katya would never take part in space travel again. After what happened to her, she’d gone off grid to join a hippie commune in the Nevada desert for almost five years and nobody had been surprised. The real shock had come in the sixth year, when she returned to Washington to teach mental endurance training at the academy. And apparently now she’s ready to exceed expectations once more, by signing up to an eight month flight. 

Trixie had been fourteen when Katya had made international news. When she dragged herself from the rubble of the USS Serenity. The sole survivor, against all the odds. She’d been unable to cope with the flurry of media attention. She was never given the chance to grieve or to heal, and so, she’d shattered. Like a porcelain doll on a hardwood floor. The world watched as she turned to drink and drugs. Screaming at paparazzi in the streets and flitting in and out of rehab, unable to cope with the trauma. 

They blamed it on survivors guilt, which Trixie had never understood, and still doesn’t, to this day. What would Katya have to be guilty for? She’d been through hell and she’d fucking persevered. She lived. Trixie vowed, back then, as a young teen, that if she ever got to meet Katya, she would tell her just that. And now, she’s on the engineering team for her spacecraft. Trixie has never believed in fate, but maybe, on this occasion, the stars have aligned just right. 

No matter what it takes, Trixie is going to make sure she’s a part of the crew of the USS Artemis before its launch. 

  
  


**_Vanessa_ **

“Julian James Mateo, you’d better get those hands away from this hot pan before I chop ‘em off,” Vanessa yells brashly, snapping the kitchen tongs in the young boy’s direction for emphasis. He’s well versed enough in her tone to know that she’s at least somewhat joking, so he giggles and pulls his hands back into his sides. She shuffles him a little further away on the countertop, for good measure. 

Vanessa is about to stir the paella, which she is certain is burning to the bottom of the pan, when Luca and Gabe sprint into the room and begin running laps around the table, chasing each other with wooden swords. She swats Julian’s hand away from the pan once more, before turning to yell at them, too. 

“Will you guys knock it off?” she snaps, then shakes the tea towel over her shoulder in their direction and grimaces when she realises she’s becoming her mother. 

This wasn’t supposed to happen. When her abuela had gotten sick last year and her mom had needed help caring for the boys, Vanessa had put her career on hold to move home in an instant. She figured that her family needed her more than the world needed another botanist. It was supposed to be temporary, until something more permanent came along, but with her abuela getting sicker by the day and her mother working three jobs yet still struggling to make ends meet, there appears to be no end in sight. 

So, she does what she can. She cooks the meals and keeps the house clean. She gives her abuela her medication and drops her brothers off at school, all whilst attempting to keep one foot in the door with regards to academia. She does just about anything she can to make her mom’s life easier, because there’s nobody in the world that deserves it more. It’s not easy, but she makes it work. 

Once more, she moves to stir the paella, but she’s stopped in her tracks when the doorbell rings. She huffs and rolls her eyes playfully at Julian, then picks him up off the countertop and balances him on her hip. She can trust the two oldest boys to watch the food, but trusting them to watch the food at the same time as minding a toddler might be a step too far. The wooden spoon in her hand is given to Luca, who gives her his sword in return, and she wipes the light sheen of sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist as she walks to answer the door. 

When the door opens, there’s a tall, blonde woman standing on the front step, looking at her expectantly. She has an unusual aura about her, like she would take candy from a baby without blinking an eye, but then go home and cry about it afterwards. Her smile is forced and way too polite. 

“I don’t want none of what y’all are selling,” Vanessa tells her, raising an eyebrow. But it’s hard to look serious with a wooden sword in one hand and a three year old child in the other. 

The woman smiles softly and shakes her head. “You must be Vanessa?”

Vanessa narrows her eyes and looks the woman up and down. “Who’s asking?”

The woman extends her hand for Vanessa to shake. “Commander Brooke Lynn Hytes, from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Can I come inside?”

-x-

If Brooke is uncomfortable sitting on their lumpy old sofa that’s littered with kids toys, she’s polite enough to not let it show on her face. She declines a cold drink, which makes Vanessa hope that her abuela doesn't get out of bed and see her being a bad host. 

Brooke pulls out a tablet computer and brings up a pdf document that Vanessa recognises all too well. It’s her application to be a researcher with the space programme. She’d made the application so long ago and heard nothing back, so she’s always assumed that means she’s been rejected, but now this woman is sitting on the couch and flicking through her application and the paella is burning and it’s all too much. 

“Do you mind if I go check on the kids? Because I can smell burning?” Vanessa laughs uncomfortably. Brooke has barely finished nodding when Vanessa leaps up from the sofa and heads for the kitchen, then shuts the door behind her. 

Whatever Brooke wants from her, it can’t be good. Sure, Vanessa has dreamed about being a researcher with NASA since she was a little girl. And sure, at twenty four, she’s almost certain she would be the youngest astronaut in history. But she can’t leave her family right now. Family has to come first, every time. Vanessa glances over to the older two boys, who are taking out the plates for dinner, instead of playing in the yard like regular kids should be doing. She knows that if she were to leave, all of her responsibility would fall onto them, and she can’t do it.

With a heavy heart, she walks back into the lounge, and before Brooke can open her mouth, she starts to talk. “Listen, I really appreciate you coming all the way here. And believe me when I say that I ain’t never been more grateful that you picked my application out of all your options, but I need to decline.”

Brooke’s self assured expression doesn’t falter. “I haven’t asked you anything yet,” she smirks softly. 

“Right,” Vanessa blushes. “Well then ask away I guess.”

“The expedition is to Mars. Three and a half months there, a month on the surface, then three and a half back. We have a skeleton crew, with only nine astronauts. And they’re all women.”

Vanessa blinks slowly and shakes her head. “Artemis?”

Brooke nods in a way that says  _ try saying no to me now.  _

Eight months is too long. The flight to Mars is too dangerous. Her project is unlikely to yield any positive results anyways. All the signs point to no. But Brooke is smiling at her encouragingly, then she brushes a long strand of blonde hair away from her shoulder and Vanessa’s breath hitches in her throat at the idea of spending the best part of a year in a confined space with one of the most beautiful women she has ever seen. 

“Vanessa,” she starts, snapping Vanessa’s gaze away from the gentle swell of muscle at her bicep and back towards her face, “I can’t tell you how many research applications I’ve read from physicists who want to study solar flares, or the effect of gravity on synthetic polymers. Hundreds of the same theories, just phrased in different ways. So when I read your proposal, it was like a breath of fresh air.”

Vanessa’s cheeks flush red with the compliment, but she isn’t going all the way to fucking space just because a hot blonde has complimented her. 

“Your paper on root development in zero gravity is unparalleled.” She shuffles, moving ever so slightly closer. “Vanessa, if you pull this off, it could mean we’re looking at sustainable plant life on Mars for the first time in history.”

The way that Brooke is staring into her eyes - with so much passion and conviction and trust - ought to be illegal. Her eyes are blue. Or green. Maybe grey? They can’t seem to make up their mind. Every time she blinks, they change. Maybe she’s some type of wizard. That’s the only explanation as to how she’s managed to waltz into her home and almost convince her to leave everything behind with just one conversation. 

“Ma’am, nobody wants this project to work more than me. But,” she hesitates and glances towards the kitchen, where she knows that Luca and Gabe are plating up dinner and trying to keep Julian quiet and saving one portion in a plastic container for when their mom gets home after they’ve gone to bed, “this just ain’t a good time for me. I’m sorry.”

Brooke nods with understanding, but doesn’t look deterred. “Maybe this could change your mind?”

She swipes away the pdf on the tablet in front of her, then opens up another document and hands the device to Vanessa. It’s a contract. Vanessa skims the details, but her eyes settle on a number with far too many zeros to be real. She looks up at Brooke, who nods. 

“This figure,” she says, gesturing to one of the numbers, “is the monthly salary you’ll be paid for the duration of your time spent training and on the expedition. And this,” she gestures to the other, “is the amount you’ll be paid upon our return.”

Vanessa shakes her head. This would be enough to hire a real nurse for her grandmother. Her mom could cut down her hours at work and spend some real time with the boys. This money could change their lives. But Vanessa wouldn’t be here to experience it with them. 

“Brooke, I-“

Brooke shakes her head. “Don’t answer right away. Take my number, think about it for a few days, then call me when you’ve made a decision.”

Their fingertips brush when Brooke hands over the card, and the tingle of excitement that Vanessa feels cursing through her veins tells her that she’s already made up her mind. 

  
  


**_Yvie_ **

80s rock on the speakers. A cold beer on the workbench. The sleeves on her overalls are rolled up past her elbows and her entire upper body is up under the hood of a red 60s Mustang, tinkering away. Yvie is in her happy place. 

Yvie has never been one for adhering to routine, which is why the life of a pilot suits her perfectly. For each flight, she’ll have a few months of prep, followed by a few months off-planet, then a couple of months of downtime. It isn't the typical nine to five job with a break at the weekends that most people have, but Yvie wouldn’t have it any other way. When she’s working, she loves to work. She lets the ship that she’s piloting become a part of her. She’s in tune with the mechanisms and the vibrations and the sounds, because accidents can happen, but not on Yvie’s watch. 

Her unrelenting focus means that when she’s on leave from the fleet, for the first couple of weeks, she likes to relax. She’ll catch up with her friends and revel in the feeling of the solid ground beneath her feet. She spends a lot of time outdoors too. She can’t get enough of the fresh air. But her inherent need to be focused also means that during her downtime, she has to find a hobby. Something inconsequential that she can engross herself in, just for a sense of purpose. A couple of years ago she’d learnt how to play the bass guitar, then the year after that she’d tried to teach herself mandarin, which hadn’t gone well. This time, she’s decided to attempt to fix up an old car. Aerospace engineering and mechanical engineering can’t be too different from each other, right?

In reality, Yvie doesn’t give a shit whether the car sitting in her garage gets fixed up or not. She truly wouldn’t care if it never drove again. She just likes having something to do with her hands. A distraction. Because if she stops moving, she’ll realise that she’s actually quite unhappy. And if there’s one thing the world wants to teach you, its that people ought to be happy, and if you aren’t happy, there’s something wrong with you. And she’s suffering under the weight of a system that puts value on happiness alone, instead of accounting for the unavoidable unhappiness that comes as a result of just being a fucking person. 

So, distractions it is. 

She takes a sip of the cool beer that is rapidly coming up to temperature in the warm, mid afternoon air, and as she sets it back down she notices a large black SUV driving down the cul-de-sac in the direction of her house. Of course, it could be driving towards anybody’s house, but the vehicle is ominous, with blacked out windows, and she’s almost certain there’s a NASA sticker on the bumper. There’s no way this isn’t for her. 

She takes another sip of her beer, rolls up her sleeves, and waits. 

If NASA were to start advertising their upcoming space programs using models, the woman who steps out of the vehicle on her driveway would be an ideal candidate. She’s tall, almost as tall as Yvie, with soft curves and platinum blonde hair. Yvie prefers redheads, but the woman is undeniably gorgeous. She drags her tongue slowly across her teeth as the woman walks towards her, then picks up her beer from the workbench. 

“Can I help you?”

The woman folds back the case on the tablet in her hands and taps the screen a few times before turning the screen in Yvie’s direction. The image is of a flight deck in a spacecraft. It’s slightly dated, but nothing that she hasn’t seen before. 

“Can you pilot a craft with this setup?” she asks, with no pretences whatsoever. 

Yvie takes the tablet from the woman’s hands and zooms in on the image, scanning the screen and checking for anything she’s never encountered before, then back up at the woman. “Who’s asking?”

She smirks and extends her hand for Yvie to shake. “Mission Commander Brooke Lynn Hytes.” She gestures back to the tablet. “Well?”

Yvie sighs softly and sets the tablet down on her workbench. She can’t tell if she’s annoyed or impressed with the fact that Hytes has walked into her garage like she owns the place and has asked her such a loaded question. Yvie knows how to pilot this, and she suspects that the fact that Hytes is here means she knows that too. But if she answers yes, it means she’s signed herself up for whatever mission this woman is leading without so much as a conversation about it first. 

This is Yvies home. Hytes may be a Commander, but Yvie calls the shots here. 

She gestures to the Mustang. “Do me a favour and hop into the driver’s seat?” 

Surprisingly, she does. She looks at Yvie expectantly, so she tosses her the keys. 

“Put her in neutral then give her a little gas,” Yvie tells Commander Hytes, then steps back. The car splutters slightly, so she kicks the bumper, as though that’s going to fix anything. “And again?”

The engine purrs softly. Like a lioness sprawled out in the desert heat. They don't make engines like this anymore- it’s all silent, hybrid types these days. She can see Hytes smiling with satisfaction too. 

“This spacecraft,” Yvie gestures to the tablet, “where are you taking her?”

“Mars.”

Yvie whistles and nods her head. “That’ll be six moths at least?”

“Eight,” Hytes corrects. 

Yvie’s expression falters. The longest she’s spent on a job without access to a real medical care is four months. Her joints ache with phantom pains at the thought of being away for so long. There’s no way she can accept. 

But apparently, Hytes picks up on her hesitation. “You’ll need a medic, I know.” 

Yvie laughs. “So you’ve been reading up on me?”

Hytes nods, and Yvie doesn’t miss the brief look of self-satisfaction. 

Yvie takes another look at the tablet, considering it more seriously this time. “The co-pilot?”

“Your choice,” Hytes tells her, and Yvie respects her for that. Not many Commanders give their pilots a choice with who they work with, and it really does make a difference when you’re up there. Yvie nods slowly then takes a moment to think it over, since not many pilots that she knows can fly a craft with this setup. 

“I think I know someone. I haven’t flown with him in a few years, but as far as I know-“

“No,” Hytes cuts her off, shaking her head. “Has to be a woman. Your does medic, too.”

It takes a moment for Yvie to connect the dots, but then all at once, she realises - this is project Artemis. The all female mission to Mars. She laughs and shakes her head because she really should’ve realised sooner. Commanders don’t usually make a habit of home visits for just any ordinary mission.

“You’re brave,” she grins, nodding her head in approval. Because honestly, it's true. Missions of this magnitude attract the attention of the world. Millions of critical eyes, scrutinising every last move. If she fucks up, even in the slightest of ways, its an invitation for the misogynists of the world to blame the fact that it’s an all female expedition, and she becomes the asshole that set feminism back by twenty years. There’s a lot riding on this, and she’s the first person to take the chance. Good for her. 

“So,” Brooke asks, with a glimmer of excitement in her eyes, “are you in?”

**_Katya_ **

Cigarette smoke trails from her lips and reverberates around the exposed brick walls of her apartment. It used to be that bare brick would be a sign of poverty - an archaic way to live, but now, its fashionable. Or at least that’s what they told her when she’d bought this place. 

The loft apartment is very large and open plan, just how she likes it. Nowhere is confined and the floor to ceiling windows let in plenty of light. The bathroom is walled off, obviously, but when she looks out of the window she can almost forget about the fact that if the door were to lock behind her she would be trapped. It isn’t that Katya is claustrophobic, it’s just that if she feels boxed in any way, she may feel a little inclined to claw her fucking eyes out. 

The doorbell buzzes, which is unusual for this time of the evening. The only times she usually hears it is when she’s waiting for takeout or when’s she’s having sex too loudly. With a sigh, she stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray on her coffee table and crosses the room to the intercom. The girl standing half naked in the kitchen - Katya’s company from the evening before - glances over from where she’s pouring a glass of wine, but says nothing. Katya wishes she could remember her name. 

She presses the intercom and asks who’s there, then waits for the response. 

“This is Mission Commander Brooke Lynn Hytes from the National Aero-“

“Yes,” Katya cuts her off, “I know where you’re from.” She sighs sharply and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Come up.”

When Brooke arrives in her apartment, Katya looks her up and down. She’s undeniably attractive, and it seems like she knows it too. Katya has never been one for small talk or formalities, she says what she’s thinking before the brain to mouth filter even has a chance to kick in.

“You here to promote me to director?”

Brooke sighs softly, but smiles. After the five year stretch she spent checked out of ordinary society, Katya knows that people have come to expect a mildly unusual recluse when they meet her for the first time, and she loves to live up to expectations. 

“No,” Brooke smiles. “Shall we?”

Brooke gestures behind Katya into the apartment. 

“Right, sure.” Katya turns and leads Brooke to sit in one of the plush sofas either side of the coffee table, and smirks as her eyes shift uncomfortably to the girl in the kitchen. “Don’t mind her, she doesn’t bite. Unless you want her to.”

Brooke folds her hands in her lap and doesn’t seem amused by the joke. Katya asks Casey to go and wait in the bedroom, which is technically just a king sized bed on the other side of a bamboo room divider, but she’s swiftly reminded that the girl’s name is  _ Cassie,  _ not Casey, and the girl decides to leave. Katya doesn’t offer Brooke an apology for the awkwardness and thankfully, Brooke doesn’t appear to expect one.

They cut straight to the chase. Brooke explains that she’s running the USS Artemis and needs a Vice-Commander. Naturally, Brooke’s first choice is a woman who hasn’t flown in fifteen years and who has a whole host of psychological issues to boot. Katya is sceptical, but for some unknown reason, it seems that Brooke is serious. When she’s finished explaining the mission, she runs through the crew that she’s already selected. Two communications officers that she’s never heard of, but Brooke assures her that they’re highly skilled. The pilot that comes with her own medic seems like a risky choice, as does the botany student with the vision of growing life on Mars. Katya scoffs a little at that one. 

Come to think of it, this mismatched crew of woman has one thing in common, aside from their gender, of course. It seems that Brooke has gone out of her way to find women that it would be advisable not to take into space, then picked them anyways. Upon the realisation, Katya doesn’t know whether that she should be insulted that Brooke is currently in her home, admiring her vintage space memorabilia. 

She asks Brooke once more why she’s chosen her, but Brooke evades the question. 

_ It would be a great honour to have you on our team.  _

_ I think it’s about time you rejoined the ranks instead of teaching academy brats how to cope without fresh water in space.  _

_ There’s nobody else I’d rather share command with.  _

Everyone has a moment, Katya believes, when something so  _ momentous  _ happens that it rips your very being into small pieces. Katya’s had been the crash. For a long time afterwards, she had to gather the pieces of herself that remained, and fit them back together into something that resembles a person. The pieces will never go back to how they were, but she’s found a new way. A way that she can live with. 

Maybe taking this job will be the thing that obliterates her progress. And if that happens, she doesn’t know that she has the strength to assemble herself a second time. But if she doesn’t take the job, then maybe she will spend the rest of her life regretting it. Katya has never resented the world for what happened to her. She has a tenderness for everything around her. An unwavering commitment to perseverance and love and hope. So, just maybe, she owes it to the stars to give them one last shot. Maybe only then she can truly be healed. 

She says yes to Brooke, and Brooke doesn’t look surprised. The bitch. 

“So,  _ Commander,  _ who’s next on your hit list today?” Katya asks, after the contracts are signed. 

Brooke smirks. “You’re my last.”

“So, you’ll stay for a drink? There’s a vintage bottle of red in the kitchen that’s begging to be opened.” 

She looks at the smartwatch on her wrist then shrugs and relaxes back into the sofa. “Sure. But I’m more of a whiskey drinker.”

Katya laughs loudly as she stands to cross to the liquor cabinet. “Of course you are.”

  
  


**_Brooke_ **

Pride. Elation. Fulfilment. All of it is an understatement to describe how Brooke feels when she’s given command of the USS Artemis. 

She’d been Vice-Commander on nine expeditions since she turned thirty five almost seven years ago, and yet NASA had been reluctant to give her her own ship. Brooke works harder and more diligently than anyone else on the programme. She’s sacrificed any semblance of a personal life that she may have had in order to progress through the ranks. She’s never owned a car or a home, preferring to rent both for the few months a year she’s in Washington. The only family she has are her sister and young nice that live in Toronto, who she barely gets to see. She’s never had a long term relationship. 

Everything has been secondary to the job. 

Brooke fought tooth and nail to be given command of the Artemis. The only project that nobody else would touch, which made it the very project that Brooke wanted the most. She’s never been afraid to do what nobody has done before. As a child when she’d go camping with her friends, they would sleep in tents but she would always lay open-eyed beneath a sky dripping with stars. She never felt more alive than during those times. The depths of space calls to her, begging to be explored. To be bolder, to push harder. To do the impossible. 

As she’s assembling her crew, she has one goal in mind. Purposefully, she selects women that all have something to prove. In her experience, those with something to prove will work the hardest. They’re the most committed, and that’s exactly what she needs. 

Nina is first. Her mentor from the academy. Even though she’s only a few years older, Nina has always been a mentor figure to Brooke. She kept Brooke grounded whenever things got too intense. She’d talked Brooke down from a panic attack the night before her first flight. But not everyone in NASA sees Nina for all she’s worth. The fact that she’s underappreciated breaks Brooke’s heart, but at least it means that she always goes the extra mile to work harder. There’s nobody else Brooke could imagine being responsible for communications on the ship. Nina asks for Monet as the auxiliary Communications Officer, which Brooke readily agrees to, since she trusts Nina’s judgement almost more than she trusts her own. 

Next, she visits Yvie. She’s a little standoffish, but she’s one of the few female pilots at NASA that would have the skills to pilot a remodeled version of the Apollo craft. Plus, she has to travel with a medic. Brooke didn’t know the extent of Yvie’s condition until she read up on her files. She read about the struggle she’d faced when applying to NASA with EDS, and the unwavering fight that she’d put up nonetheless. Anyone with that much grit and determination is welcome on her crew.

Brooke is a little less than enthusiastic when Yvie submits Scarlet’s name as her chosen medic, as she’s encountered the woman once before and had a less than favourable opinion of her, but she decides to let it slide for Yvie’s benefit. She hopes that Yvie’s selection for co-pilot is less controversial. 

After she has the basics selection of her crew tied down, she sets about sifting through research proposals to find one she likes the sound of. Most are boring, overly predictable garbage, but one stands out amongst the array. A young postgrad with a specialism in botany suggesting that it may be possible to grow sustainable plant life on Mars. Brooke knows very little about botany, much less astrobotany, but the one thing she knows for sure is that this proposal has a very slim chance of success. But in Brooke’s experience, researchers with narrow chances of yielding positive results will work twice as hard, in a desperate attempt to prove that the millions of taxpayer dollars spent on sending them into space hasn’t been wasted. Vanessa Mateo seems like the ideal researcher to have onboard the USS Artemis. 

One thing that Brooke doesn’t account for, is that when she’s standing on the doorstep of a small family home in the suburbs of DC, that one of the most gorgeous women she has ever seen in her life would answer the door. Briefly, she hopes that the woman before her is Vanessa’s sister, and that the real Vanessa is much less attractive, because Brooke may keep sex and work as two very separate things but, fuck, she’s only human. 

Vanessa apologises as she tidies up the living room to make space for them to sit down, then ushers her brothers into the kitchen. Brooke knows from reading her file that she’s recently taken a break from academia in order to care for dependants, but she hadn’t realised the extent of the situation. Her heart breaks for Vanessa, because the eyes of a twenty four year olds should not carry so much exhaustion. 

She has beautiful eyes. The kind of eyes that you could get lost in. Powerful enough that Brooke has to look away - to fiddle with her hands as a distraction - just to stop herself from staring. But she’s unable to tear her gaze away when she hands Vanessa the business card with her number on and she sees a glimmer of almost childlike excitement on her face. She knows that she’s made the right choice in Vanessa, without a doubt. 

She chooses not to think about the dangers of spending the best part of a year in a confined space with someone you’re attracted to. She’ll deal with that problem when it arrives. 

The last person on her list is Katya. To say she’s a risky choice would be the polite way to phrase it. To say she’s a potentially disastrous, blonde haired liability may be more accurate. Nina advises her against it, as do other ranking officials. The director of NASA advises her against it. By all accounts, she’s unfit for space travel. Fifteen years have passed since she became the sole survivor of the USS Serenity, and you can still see the faint traces of pain in the way she holds herself. Brooke imagines it will never leave her. But despite all the red lights, Brooke wants her all the same. The entire purpose of Artemis is to prove she can do the unexpected, and if that includes making Katya her Vice-Commander, then so be it. 

The moment that Katya signs the contracts, agreeing to be a part of the Artemis’s mission, Brooke feels the tension leave her shoulders. She even agrees Katya making her a drink. They’re going to be co-commanders for a long time, so they might as well start getting to know one another now. Katya is every bit as eccentric and peculiar as people say she is, but the jarring part is that she has moments of calmness and serenity, amidst the chaos. Brooke knows she will get along very well with her. 

Embarrassingly, she has to leave her car in the garage of Katya’s apartment building and get an uber home. On the way, she gazes out of the window and up at the sky. It’s too cloudy to see the stars, but the beautiful thing is that she knows they’re out there waiting for her. 

Waiting for the USS Artemis and it’s crew, longing to be explored. 

  
  
  
  
  



	2. Scarlet 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick note to say that I’ve decided to change the way I publish Artemis. 
> 
> Instead of having every chapter include the point of view of every chapter, I’ll be uploading in smaller segments, but posting more frequently. This is because chapter two is pushing 12k and was taking me weeks to write! Hopefully this way I will be able to upload at a regular rate. 
> 
> Let me know if this new system works!
> 
> The order will be Scarlet, Trixie, Vanessa, Yvie, Katya, Brooke. And the segments are roughly chronological, but may overlap.

**_Scarlet_ **

She can remember when the preparation for space exploration took years, now, the turn around for a mission like this is mere months. 

Firstly, each member of the crew is tested for their physical and mental eligibility to fly, which is odd for Scarlet. She administers these checks, she isn’t the recipient of them. 

Logically, she knows that she hasn’t even had a cold in nearly a decade, but it doesn’t stop her from worrying. She’s relentless with her attitude to her physical health, a little too much, if you were to ask the people close to her. Every meal is perfectly balanced. She drinks plenty of water. Her resting heart rate could just about rival an athletes. The six hours that she has to spend in the medical centre whilst they run every available test on her body seems redundant, since they aren’t going to tell her something that she doesn’t already know. 

“Do you suffer from excessive stress, Doctor Envy?”

The man sitting across from her is in his fifties, hair greying slightly at the temples. Lines are beginning to form in his face where the wrinkles will be, if you give it a few more years. Scarlet knows him vaguely, they work in the same profession, after all. She’d requested to be paired with a doctor who she doesn’t know personally, and she supposes that this is the best they could do. 

The question about stress irks her more than it should. Obviously she’s fucking stressed. She’s in the middle of a messy breakup with her ex-fiancé and currently living in her best friends spare bedroom as they prepare to get hurled through space in a tin can for the best part of a year. Which part of that scenario  _ isn’t  _ stressful. But if she answers yes to the question, he’s going to want to talk about it. Or worse, he’s going to want to refer her to someone else to talk about it. 

And despite everything else, nothing is more stressful than having to show up to an appointment for an hour a week and try to summarise everything that’s stressful in a way that means you don’t snap and drive home like a maniac afterwards. Scarlet knows, she’s tired. 

He’s still waiting for an answer. 

“Nope, no stress here,” she laughs awkwardly. He narrows his eyes. 

“This will be your first time taking part in space travel, yes?”

She nods slowly. “ Aside from the mandatory training.” He doesn’t say anything, so she feels the need to fill the void. “I know that this is a big project for my first trip, but Pilot Oddly needs a medical expert in EDS to travel with her to ensure her safety and the safety of the rest of the crew.”

_ Yvie needs me and there’s nobody else in the world I would trust to do this job.  _

He nods again and she sighs, leaning forwards slightly. “Listen,” she tells him, dropping into a tone that is slightly less than professional. “I know that it’s okay to be stressed, or be scared. I know that I need to account for the amount of strain my body and mind are going to be under whilst I’m there. I know that I’m going to pass out whilst we exit the atmosphere. What you’re doing right now is my job, too. I know what to expect, okay?”

He smirks slightly, in a way that suggests that maybe Scarlet is wrong, and she doesn’t know what to expect at all. 

-x- 

Yvie’s medical assessment takes longer than the standard six hours of testing. On day two, she comes home looking utterly drained. They really are pushing her to the limits. She skulks past Scarlet where she sits on the sofa and walks into the kitchen. She reeks of chlorine. 

“Have you been in the pool today?”

She groans in response. “Three fucking hours in the pool wearing a two hundred pound suit.”

“Just wait until they take us all to Texas in a few months and we have to do it all again,” Scarlet teases. 

After the basic physical fitness test, no matter how many times you’ve been to space, each astronaut has to build their physical endurance at the space centre in Texas. Since they’re going to be taking part in an eight month flight, Scarlet expects this training to be rigorous to say the least. It isn’t something she’s looking forward to. 

She listens to the sound of Yvie angrily opening and closing cupboards in the kitchen. She probably isn’t even looking for anything, she just wants to make a noise. Scarlet takes that as her cue to get up from the couch and join her.

From the doorway to the kitchen, she sees Yvie open the fridge, scan its contents then slam it shut, then sigh deeply and rest her head against the door. “I hate being treated like I’m fucking incapable of doing things,” she says softly. 

Scarlet knows. 

She’s been through the same ordeal before every space flight. Each time she has to have her physical fitness pushed to the brink before they deem her eligible. But Yvie preservers, because that’s what Yvie does. She gets through whatever life throws at her, and she’s going to get through this. 

Scarlet crosses the room to rest a delicate hand on her shoulder. 

“You know that you can do this, and I know that you can do this. Commander Hytes wouldn’t have chosen you if she didn’t think you could do this. You’re going to push through these tests, no matter how many they want to throw at you.”

Yvie looks as though she might cry, but she doesn’t. She takes a deep breath and nods her head, then rolls her shoulders and winces slightly. Scarlet sighs. She hates what they’re doing to her. 

“I’m gonna go work on the car,” Yvie tells her, but Scarlet shakes her head. 

“Go take a shower, I’ll order a pizza.”

Yvie hesitates and frowns, but can’t keep her resolve for long. Her face breaks into a soft smile and Scarlet nudges her side playfully. 

A little over half an hour, Scarlet is sat cross legged on the sofa in her pyjamas flicking through the options on Netflix when Yvie walks in wearing a robe and still damp from the shower. Wordlessly, she sits on the floor in front of Scarlet and hands her a tub of coconut oil. 

Back in college, Yvie had very short hair cropped in close to her head. She’d grown up with her dad and two brothers, so there’d never been a woman around to show her that hair care can be a soothing way to de-stress. Scarlet on the other hand had grown up with two moms, and when she was one enough, once a month the three of them would take a trip to a fancy, overpriced salon to have their hair washed and styled. Scarlet loved to spend time with her moms, but most of all she loved closing her eyes and listening to the radio and letting her stress drift away as the stylist combed through her hair. A small part of her hurt for Yvie when she realised she’d never had that experience. 

So, Scarlet had gently encouraged her to start experimenting with her hair. To grow it out a little and wear it in different styles. When Yvie’s hair was a little longer and started forming small, tight ringlets, she realised that she had no idea how to care for it effectively, which is how they began their routine of Yvie washing her hair then sitting patiently as Scarlet applies small amounts of coconut oil to the curls. After they stopped living together, they hadn’t been able to do this as much, but it feels like the perfect way to pretend that just for a minute, they’re in college again, and everything is okay. 

Scarlet picks the next thing she sees on Netflix, then allows Yvie to settle between her legs on the floor. They don’t talk much as Scarlet applies the oil, opting for comfortable silence instead. For Scarlet, it’s easy to forget, at times like this, that so much of her life has just changed. Adrian is gone. They’re selling the house that she loved, and she’s going to be living with Yvie until they leave in a few months, which she has mixed feelings about. 

It isn’t that she doesn’t like living with Yvie, because she loves it. Their four years through college had been probably the best four years of her life. The problem is that she can’t seem to settle in, despite knowing she’s going to be here for a while. When they’d lived together, it had been in a shared apartment, but here, everything is Yvie’s. The decor on the walls and the towels and the beers, they’re all Yvie’s things. Yvie told Scarlet to treat this place as if it were her own, but she won’t accept any money for rent or bills or groceries. Scarlet doesn’t feel like she’s at home, she feels like a guest. And she knows that that isn’t right. 

As she works on Yvie’s hair, she notices that Yvie is shifting her shoulders uncomfortably. They must be causing her a great deal of pain if she’s showing it, because usually she will hide her discomfort at all costs. 

And it isn’t supposed to be a big deal - she doesn’t even register that she’s doing it, really, it just happens - but when she’s finished with Yvie’s hair, she takes a little of the coconut oil on her fingers, rubs it into her hands and delicately rests her palms on the space where Yvie’s neck meets her shoulders. 

Yvie freezes at the contact and Scarlet knows she’s fucked up, because they’ve been here before. 

Gentle caresses stopped in their tracks, that could’ve turned into something more. Almost kisses. One or two actual kisses. Soft and chaste, but full of desire, never going any further.

At first, they’d avoided crossing that bridge because they were roommates. They’d been lucky to be paired with one another, since they got along like a house on fire. They didn’t want to throw away their comfortable lifestyle just for an awkward makeout or a one night stand. So, there’d been an unspoken agreement that whatever it was between them, it would be pushed down inside. Sometimes, it’s deep and repressed, but sometimes, like now, for instance, it bubbles just below the surface. 

On the night of Scarlet’s engagement party, they’d come closer than they’d ever come before.

Yvie had never made any secret of the fact that she didn’t like Adrian. She thought Scarlet was too good for him. That he would hold her back. Trap her in boring life in their boring house. That she’d be stuck at home doing his laundry whilst he’d drink away his days in his office after hours. 

She was right, but that’s besides the point. Because back then, Scarlet was still hopeful. Still in love, sort of, and still hoping it would work out the way she’d planned. 

Scarlet and Yvie had fought on the night of the engagement party. In the women’s bathroom with the door locked so that they wouldn’t be disturbed. Makeup was smudged down their faces. Harsh words were exchanged that they’ve never quite been able to take back. And then in the heat of it all, Yvie’s expression has faltered ever so slightly and she said the one thing that Scarlet has suspected she’d wanted to say for a very long time. 

_ “What the fuck can he give you that I can’t?” _

Scarlet couldn’t reply. Or think. Or breathe. Because the idea that she’s been wrong for all this time - that she’d been so disastrously wrong in ignoring this thing between her and Yvie - it was too much to bare. The thought that they’ve wasted some of the best years of their lives just trying to get by when all they needed was each other - it was too much. But she didn’t have the chance to tell Yvie that it’s too late to think like that, or that they never would’ve worked out no matter how much they wanted it to because they wanted different things out of life, because the moment Scarlet opened her mouth to speak, Yvie’s lips were on hers. 

Soft and warm and insistent and needy. Hands on either side of her face. Holding her steady. Promising her that this is okay. 

It was perfect, but it wasn’t right. 

It was the best kiss of her life, but she’d just promised to spend the rest of that life with another. 

It finished too soon, and it should never have happened in the first place. 

Their foreheads touched and just for a moment, Scarlet was going to do it. She was going to leave him and run away with Yvie and cry and mourn for the years they’d lost, but replace them with promises of a better future. 

But she’s a coward and she always has been. 

That night was years ago, and now she’s sitting on Yvie’s couch with her hands on the bare skin of her shoulders and the silence is deafening. 

“What are you doing?” Yvie repeats. 

Scarlet coughs awkwardly. “Your shoulders. You’ve strained them. I thought that,” she trails off. 

Almost imperceptibly, Yvie nods her head, then shifts the martial of her robe so that Scarlet has better access. So, they’re doing this. 

Scarlet is a doctor. Yvie is in pain. That is all this is. Nothing more. Neither of them want it to be any more than that. That ship has long since sailed. 

“Thank you,” Yvie whispers as Scarlet works out the knots in her muscles and eases the tension in her joints. 

But Scarlet is a coward and she always has been, so she doesn’t say anything in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys enjoy this chapter and thanks for waiting so long between this and chapter one! 
> 
> Trixie 1 will be uploaded this evening.


	3. Trixie 1

**_Trixie_ **

Finding Commander Brooke Lynn Hytes is not a difficult task, but working up the courage to go over and talk to her is a different story. It didn’t take long for her to work out where Hytes spends her time on the NASA campus during the day. She’s working on the designs for her ship, after all, so nobody has questioned the fact that Trixie may seem a little too over invested. 

The problem with asking about Hytes on campus has been that the more she’s asked, the more she worries about what will happen when she finally meets this woman. It isn’t that Brooke isn’t liked, because her name tends to carry a lot of respect with those who know it, but she sees the expressions that people try to hide. The expression that says  _ oh, you’re looking for Hytes? Good luck.  _

From the sounds of it, Hytes is very matter of fact. She follows the rules diligently, almost to a fault. She isn’t particularly warm. Ordinarily, these type of things wouldn’t bother Trixie, but considering she’s about to ask to be a part of her upcoming mission for no other reason than that she wants to fly with Katya, Trixie is starting to let her nerves get the better of her. 

Trixie finds Hytes in the gym one morning. She tries to act as though it’s a coincidence that they’re two of the few people that have decided to use the gym at this ungodly hour, but she suspects that the bags under her eyes and the fact she has no idea how to operate any of the equipment may be blowing her cover. 

In theory, this had been a good idea. Endorphins are released during exercise, so if she’s ever going to catch this alleged miserable bitch during a good mood, it’s going to be now, right?

Hytes is the type of woman that looks unreasonably good whilst she’s running on a treadmill, sprinting like an athlete and barely breaking a sweat. She looks very different to Trixie, who is struggling to catch her breath during a gentle jog. She’s a few machines down from Hytes, trying her best to stop glancing over. Catching her on the treadmill doesn’t feel like the right time, so, she waits. It also doesn’t feel right to ambush Hytes whilst she’s on the rowing machine, so Trixie keeps her distance. 

When Hytes moves over to the padded area and starts to select a pair of handheld weights, tentatively, Trixie begins her approach. With as much nonchalance as she can muster, she wanders over to the weights stand and picks the set one size smaller than Brooke’s. Well, she almost picks them. The way that her arms strain uncomfortably tells her that these weights are an unwise choice, so she opts for a pair a few sizes down. 

She sits on a bench, trying to replicate Brooke’s position. Not too close to her that it’s obvious, since the rest of the gym is almost empty, but close enough that she can strike up conversation when the time is right. Slowly, she begins to curl the weights in a way that she thinks is probably right and plans what she’s going to say, but as it turns out, her conversation plans are pointless. 

“You’re going to hurt yourself if you carry on doing that,” she hears Hytes say to her. As she turns in the direction of her voice, Trixie feels her cheeks redden and expects Hytes to be frowning at her, or mocking perhaps. But to her surprise, Hytes’ expression is one of concern only.

Trixie blushes and sets the weights down by her feet. “I don’t really know what I’m doing,” she admits. 

“I can see that,” Hytes smiles softly. Then, to Trixie’s surprise, she gets up from the bench and moves to the one adjacent to her.

Once she’s set down her own weights and water bottle, she moves closer to Trixie. “Can I help you?” 

A little stunned, Trixie can only nod her head. Part of her is expecting this to be some sort of ploy, given the words of warning that have been spoken against Hytes. That maybe she’s going to set her up with the weights in a way that’s going to injure her even more, or ridicule her whilst she does it. But she does neither of those things, instead, she shows Trixie how to curl the weights in a way that’s going to be more comfortable.

“Better?” Hytes smiles as she sits back down on her own bench.

“Better. Thank you.”

Trixie is so surprised that Hytes is nothing like she expected her to be, that she almost forgets the real reason she’s here. That is until she’s prompted. 

Hytes turns to her and narrows her eyes slightly, as though she isn’t quite sure of what she’s about to say. 

“Have you been following me? Because I’d never seen you on campus until a few weeks ago and now I see you everywhere. And maybe it’s a coincidence, but something tells me that it’s not.”

If Trixie thought she was red from the workout, that had been nothing compared to how she feels now. 

“Um, not strictly- I wouldn’t say that- It hasn’t been intentional-“

Hytes narrows her eyes further. 

“You’re the Commander of the Artemis.”

Hytes sighs and nods her head slightly. “I see.” She starts to move from her bench before talking again, “Look kid, you seem nice but I’ve already picked my researcher and I only have one lab-“

“No,” Trixie cuts her off, a little too loudly. “I’m not a PhD student, I’m an engineer. I’m working on your ship.”

“Oh.” Hytes stops, seemingly deciding not to walk away. 

“You need an engineer onboard during the mission.”

Hytes sighs again. “I don’t, and my crew is already at capacity-“

“It isn’t,” Trixie interrupts. “The ship can hold nine, you’re only taking eight. 

Hytes smiles and shakes her head. “I’m not going to get anything past you, am I?” She looks at the smartwatch on her wrist. “I’ve got twenty minutes to salvage the rest of this workout, so make it quick. What experience do you have?”

“Fuck, is this like my interview?”

She looks at her watch again. “Nineteen minutes fiffy.”

“Shit, okay. Um. Well I’ve been with NASA I graduated from MIT with a PhD in aerospace engineering four years ago. I was on the team that built the USS Goddard and I made parts for the ISS last year.”

“How long were you at the ISS?”

Trixie shakes her head, “oh no, I didn’t go. I made the parts and fitted them remotely.”

“So where have you been?”

“Um, the NASA centre in Huston and um, Cape Canaveral once but that was just on vacation.”

Hytes laughs. “Where in space?”

“Um.”

Hytes eyes widen and she shakes her head in disbelief. “You’ve never been to space?”

“Well no, not technically-“

Hytes laughs again and turns to walk away. “Sorry, kid, but this  _ interview  _ is over.”

“No, wait,” Trixie pleads. Hytes turns to face her again. “You weren’t going to take anyone anyways and-“ 

Hytes frowns as if to say  _ is that really the best you’ve got? _

Trixie takes a deep breath and tries again. “Okay, I may not have been to space. And there might be better options than me. But I know your ship like the back of my hand and if you can trust anyone to keep your crew safe it’s me. Commander Hytes, I’m going to work so hard and I’m going to do all of the training that you need me to do and I’ll learn how to curl those weights properly if you need me to and-”

Hytes laughs softly, then shrugs her shoulders. “Fuck it. I’ll look over your credentials this morning. If I like what I see and you pass the flight simulation tests, then you’re in.”

Trixie screeches and resist the urge to pull Hytes into a bone crushing hug. Hytes tells her that she has to meet her at the gym each morning so that they can work on her fitness, otherwise she’s not going to pass the endurance testing, which Trixie readily agrees to. She also asks Trixie to call her Brooke instead of Commander Hytes, which is yet another surprising move.

As they’re walking back to the changing rooms, Brooke asks her why she’s so eager to join the Artemis’ crew, and Trixie wishes she’d planned some type of answer for this, because all she can think about is how badly she wants to be on Katya’s equivalent of a comeback tour. She settles for an answer that is much more vague. 

“The Artemis is a project unlike any that have been run before, and I’d be a fool not to want to be a part of it.”

-x- 

When she returns to the engineer base to start her days work, there’s a spring in her step that hadn’t been there before. Sure, she’s exhausted from her half-workout, and daunted by the prospect of having to do the same thing every morning for the next few months, but she’s provisionally made it onto the crew of the Artemis and she’s never been happier. 

The engineer base is a short drive outside of the city, since it's not like theres the space to build crafts in the centre of DC, but Trixie doesn’t mind the drive as it gives her a chance to cool down after the morning’s excitement. Brooke had asked that she doesn’t spread the news that she’s made the ship's crew, so that she isn’t flooded with further requests to join. The plan is to wait until the last few weeks then quietly slip Trixie’s name onto the crew list, but the urge to blurt out her news to anyone she passes is overwhelming. 

“You’re late,” Kim mummers as she walks into the rec room. The rec room is really an all purpose area, with a desk for signing papers, a shitty microwave and some beat up sofas, and hooks where they hang up the suits that they have to wear whilst working on the crafts. The suits are sort of like what you’d expect a mechanic to wear to cover their face from sparks, except it covers their whole body and has special clips so attach themselves to the safety rigging. 

Trixie steps into the bottom half of her suit and ties the arms around her waist, then walks over to the kitchen area. 

“There’s no coffee left,” she grumbles.

“Yes, because you’re late.”

Trixie shrugs, determined not to let it kill her mood. 

“There’s someone from the Artemis’ crew waiting for you,” Kim tells her.

“What?” Trixie stutters, “why would they be waiting for me?”

Kim looks at her in confusion. “She’s the researcher. She’s here to check out the lab space so she knows what supplies to request. The appointment has been on the calendar for weeks.”

“Right, right,” Trixie nods quickly. “Right, yeah. That’s it. The researcher.”

Kim narrows her eyes, “you’re acting weirder than usual.”

“No I’m not,” Trixie practically yells back. 

“Whatever. Don’t keep Vanessa waiting for much longer, I’ve heard she’s Hytes’ pet project and Hytes can be a real bitch when she’s inconvenienced. Or when she isn’t,” Kim laughs and one of the other engineers in the room joins her. 

Trixie frowns, because the Brooke that she knows isn’t a bitch. The Brooke that she’d met this morning delayed her workout to help a stranger without being asked, and offered to take someone with next to no qualifications on the trip of her lifetime just because she can. But it’s easier to go with the grain than against it, so she laughs too. 

-x- 

She meets Vanessa out in the yard. She’s young and undeniably attractive. No wonder Brooke has a special interest in her. After a brief introduction, she shows Vanessa to one of the golf carts that they use to drive out to the crafts. 

“Damn, Mami” Vanessa breathes out as they pull up to their ship. 

That had been Trixie’s first reaction when she’d seen the ship too. It’s gigantic. One of the biggest ships in action. The engines and thrusters are colossal. Even the escape pods are bigger than most of the smaller crafts. 

“We gonna be living in luxury,” Vanessa grins excitedly. 

“Not quite,” Trixie laughs. “Most of what you see is the engines and cooling systems. The only parts you’ll be in are up on the top deck.”

Vanessa nods in appreciation. “The penthouse, I like it.”

The frustrating thing about having to access a ship whilst it’s on the ground, is that the only way up is a series of temporary elevators and stairs. The system is safe, because they’re clipped in, but it’s exposed to the elements and, fuck, its high up. The height is something that Trixie has never gotten used to, but Vanessa seems to adore it, leaning out over the edge as much as her safety harness will allow. 

Trixie is tempted to stand behind her so that they’re like Jack and Rose on the Titanic, but if she gets any more of a glimpse of the ground than she has to, she’s going to throw up. An astronaut that’s afraid of heights sounds like the set up to a terrible joke, but Trixie isn’t laughing. 

Eventually, they reach the hatch to the ship, then enter one last elevator which brings them to the top level. The elevator opens up across from the viewing deck, which is really just gigantic window. Trixie is sure that when they’re in space, this view will be magnificent, but whilst they’re still on the ground, she can’t bear to look. 

“I’ve never been in one of these before,” Vanessa beams as she walks up to the window. 

“Yeah, it’s a little different from what they have you in during training.”

Vanessa laughs loudly, “this bitch makes the training craft look like a fucking go-cart.”

Trixie can tell that they’re going to be friends. 

She glances at her watch and sees that she doesn’t have long before she’s due down on the maintenance deck to start her real work, and she still has to drive Vanessa back to her car when they’re done, so she tells Vanessa that this has to be a quick trip and guides her promptly to the lab. 

Once in the lab, Vanessa sets about looking through all the workbench cupboards and takes out a notebook from her pocket to make notes on what she needs. 

“So, what is your project anyways?” Trixie asks out of politeness.

Vanessa is on her knees, checking the thermometer at the back of the fridge, so Trixie misses the majority of her response. 

“The short version is,” Vanessa tells her as she stands up and brushes off her knees, “I’m gonna try grow some plants on Mars.”

Trixie can’t help but laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”

Vanessa sighs, but she’s still smiling. “I know, I was surprised she picked me too. But if Hytes thinks I have a shot then I’m going to try. 

Well, you can’t knock Vanessa’s confidence that’s for sure. 

When Vanessa finishes her list, Trixie gets ready to start the descent down to ground level, but Vanessa stops her before they reach the elevator. 

“Maybe we could just have a little tour first?” 

Trixie groans and glances at her watch. “I really don’t have the time to-“

“Just a quick look. A speedy tour? Or you could just show me which room is mine?”

The excitement on Vanessa’s face makes it too hard to say no, and Trixie is a sucker for a little procrastination every once in a while.

Trixie takes Vanessa to the flight deck with strict instructions that they’re not staying for any more than five minutes. When they arrive Vanessa heads straight for the Command chair in the centre of the room. She briefly looks at Trixie before sitting down, to ask for permission, and Trixie gives her the all clear. It’s nothing that everyone from engineering hasn’t done before. 

After a few minutes of watching Vanessa take pictures and listening to her talk about how much her brothers would love it in here, Trixie is just about ready to leave.

“It’s going to be my first mission,” Vanessa tells her softly from where she stands looking out of the front window. 

Trixie laughs. “You’re twenty four, I could’ve guessed that.”

Vanessa doesn’t laugh, and Trixie can tell this is going to be one of  _ those  _ conversations. She isn’t particularly skilled at handling other people’s emotions, but she’ll give it a shot. 

“If I pass the exams, this is going to be my first mission too.”

Vanessa’s face lights up slightly. “You’re coming?”

“That’s the plan.”

Vanessa still looks worried.

“Come here,” Trixie tells her, guiding her to the back of the room gesturing to one of the seats. “Sit down.”

Vanessa’s small body makes the decked out chair around her look ginormous. The belts and fasteners are hanging loose, the seat has no control capabilities and the display is not illuminated, so it’s nothing special to see. Vanessa raises her eyebrows as though to ask why Trixie has made her sit here. 

“This is where you’ll be sitting when we’re in flight,” Trixie explains. She points to the the other seats nearby. “I’ll be in this one, if I make it, and one of the Communications Officers will be in this one.”

“And all this,” Trixie tells her, gesturing to the equipment around her, “is here to keep you safe. We’re all here to look out for each other. I’m scared shitless, too. But we’re going to be alright.”

It may be a little patronising, because of course Vanessa knows that she’s going to be safe. But sometimes it’s nice to hear it said out loud. 

-x- 

Trixie and Vanessa swap numbers on the way back to the engineering base. If all goes to plan, they’re going to be on the same crew together, and Trixie figures that it isn’t too early to start making friends. Vanessa is way more enthusiastic than Trixie, and seems to think that their mission to space is going to be like some sort of summer camp. She suggests making a group email chain so that they can get to know one another. Trixie jokingly suggests that Vanessa makes them all friendship bracelets, and just for a moment she worries that Vanessa thinks she’s serious. 

Trixie drops Vanessa off at her car and grimaces when she looks at her watch and realises that there’s no way she’s going to make it back to the maintenance deck in time. Since she’s already going to be late, she decides to head back into the rec room and grab that cup of coffee she’d missed out on earlier. 

She’s barely even inside the room when Kim sighs. 

“Thank God, you’re back. The blond one from the Artemis crew is here to see the ship. She’s being a real cunt, so we’ve decided that you’re going to show her around since you were late this morning.”

Trixie frowns in confusion. Brooke may be a little blunt, but she’s definitely not that bad. In all honesty, she was actually very sweet. She really doesn’t understand how Brooke has managed to earn herself such a bad reputation. 

It seems like Trixie’s chances of getting a cup of coffee this morning are zero, so, with a sigh, she turns to head back outside. 

She sees Brooke leaning against the wall, facing away from the doorway. A line of smoke trails from the lit cigarette in her hand by her side, which seems odd for a woman that spent the morning in the gym. And maybe it’s because she’s exhausted, but Trixie doesn’t notice that Brooke is shorter than she was this morning. Or that her hair is different. Or that, really, this isn’t Brooke at all. 

“Commander Hytes,” Trixie calls as she gets a little closer. 

The woman turns to face Trixie, stopping her dead in her tracks. 

“Do I look Canadian to you?” Katya asks with a smirk. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and a huge thanks to everyone who left feedback on the last chapter. 
> 
> Over on my tumblr @youre-a-kite you can find a quick sketch of the floor plan of the interior of the Artemis’s ship, which might help with visuals.
> 
> Vanessa 1 will be uploaded some time tomorrow.


	4. Vanessa 1

**_Vanessa_ **

Vanessa is under no illusion about the fact that she’s very low down the food chain at NASA. She may be a part of one of the biggest missions of the century. A member of a team that is very likely to go down in history. But when all is said and done, she’s still going to be the loudmouthed, young botanist who lucked her way into a crew that she has no business being a part of. 

In a way, she likes to play into the role. She exaggerates the loudness and her quirks. She pretends to have no idea what she’s doing, because it’s so much easier than dealing with people who feel threatened when they find out she’s much smarter than they are. She jokes and laughs instead of showing her frustrations and her fears, so that she doesn’t become the overly emotional child that everyone expects her to be. 

But, just once, it would be nice to be taken seriously. 

She tells herself that when she gets back from Mars, things are going to be different, but for now, she’s going to act the part. 

Against Trixie’s advice, she starts a group email chain with the women from the Artemis mission. It takes her almost an hour to scour the NASA databases to find the right email addresses, and accidentally includes Nicholas West, from the board of directors, instead of Nina, but eventually she gets the group up and running. 

Scarlet is the first to respond. She jokes that the group is in luck, because they’re going to be flying with NASA’s best medic. Then Yvie responds to her, asking who the other medic is. Yvie’s joke seems to break the awkwardness a little, and eventually everybody responds to introduce themselves in some way or another. Everyone, except for Brooke. 

Even Katya responds, but Vanessa isn’t sure why she bothers, since the message she sends is in Russian. When translated, it reads ‘ _ I swear to God, if you don't take me out of this email chain I am not going to space.’ _

-x-

When Vanessa gets home from work that evening, she wants nothing more than to crawl into bed and not get up until the following day. She hasn’t had a busy day particularly, but she’s had a lot to think about, and having a lot to think about tends to send her mind into overdrive. It’s as though there is an ongoing battle in her head over whether she should prioritise trying to work out a list of equipment she needs for the mission, or try and learn all the names and titles of the crew, or just say screw it all and watch back-to-back episodes of something trashy on Netflix. 

But before she can do any of that, she has to take care of her responsibilities at home. Her grandmother needs her meds. The boys need their dinner. Tackling some of the laundry would probably help out her mom, too. When she gets her first pay cheque for the time that she’s spending in training, she’s going to use it to hire a real nurse to come and care for her grandmother, or maybe an after-school sitter for the boys. Just anything to lighten the load. 

After dinner, she gathers her brothers on the sofa so that she can show them the photos she took of the inside of the spacecraft. 

Luca and Gabe sit either side of her, leaning in to the phone in awe, whilst Julian sits on Vanessa’s lap, playing with loose strands of her hair. 

“Ness, did you go to space today?” Luca asks, zooming in on one of the photos of the cockpit.

Vanessa chuckles slightly. “No, baby, the ship is still on the ground. I leave in a few months, but mom is gonna bring you guys to Florida to see the launch.”

Gabe’s face lights up. “Are we going to get the day off school?”

“I guess so?”

The two boys high five across her lap. 

She tries to get them to look at a few more photos, but within moments, they’ve lost interest. Somehow, they’re deep in a world of make belief, where they’re astronauts travelling in deep space, using ray guns against aliens. She wants to tell them that whilst she’s in space, all she’s going to be doing is trying to grow some plants, but she doesn’t want to spoil their fun. 

By the time her mom gets home, the boys are in bed. Her mom looks exhausted, right down to her core. It’s the kind of saturated exhaustion that sleep won’t fix, no matter how much she gets. Vanessa feels a pang of guilt for not doing more of the laundry. 

Despite how badly she needs sleep, Vanessa’s mom lets her reheat some of the leftover food from dinner and when they sit down at the dining table, the hour hand on the clock is knocking on twelve’s door. 

“What did you do today, mija?” 

No matter what, Vanessa’s mom will always take the time to ask about her day. 

She tells her mom about visiting the ship and shows her the photos. Her mom tries to ask the right questions about Vanessa’s project, but it’s painfully obvious that she doesn’t understand what any of it means. Still, it feels nice that someone is taking her work seriously. Someone thinks she’s going to succeed.

Then, the subject turns to the matter of her colleagues, and her moms tone gets a little softer. 

“Are they being kind to you, baby? Are you making friends?” She asks, reaching her hand out across the table to take Vanessa’s. 

Vanessa rolls her eyes, because she’s starting to feel like she’s in first grade and not a part of one of the biggest space programmes on the planet. But she understands why her mom is asking. To her mom, Vanessa is always going to be her little girl that came home from school in tears because the teachers had told her she was too hyperactive to make any real friends. They’d told her mom that no matter how social she is, if Vanessa didn’t learn to control her energy, she would struggle through life. 

Vanessa knows that she isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and she’s never shied away from the fact that she knows she can light up a room. Now that she’s an adult, if someone doesn’t like her, that shit is like water off a duck’s back. But of course her mom is worried. It’s her job. 

“Everyone is great, mama. I’m part of a team.”

_ A part of a team that thinks my project is a joke and that I’m only on the mission to be eye candy for the Commander. A team that expects me to act the fool for eight months and most likely fuck up the one job that I’m supposed to be doing. But, sure, a part of a team.  _

-x-

Around a month after the email chain is created, Yvie messages the group saying that her and A’keria are running a simulation of the Artemis launch and anyone is welcome to join them. Vanessa smirks, because this was exactly her intention. They’re going to be spending a significant amount of together, there’s no reason they shouldn’t at least try to become friends first. Plus, anything that gets her out of staring at dirt at the end of a microscope for an hour is always a bonus. 

When she arrives, her Trixie and Scarlet are the only ones that have shown up, and Trixie is only there because she has to do her job. But she figures that this is better than nothing. 

She holds back asking why Brooke isn’t here. She isn’t stupid, she’s heard the rumours that Brooke only picked her project because she’s young and attractive and would be nice to have around for eight months. Frankly, it’s insulting to both of them, so she doesn’t give the people who spread those lies the time of day, but she doesn’t need to add fuel to the fire. 

“Shit, this simulation room is a lot smaller than the flight deck on the real ship.”

A’keria turns around to glare at her, and it’s only then that she notices the young boy sat on her lap. 

“My bad,” Vanessa smiles apologetically.

“You’ve seen the ship already?” Yvie asks, before Vanessa can question why there’s a child in the room. 

Now, its Trixie’s turn to glare at her. Vanessa assumes that Trixie wasn’t supposed to show her the flight deck when she’d given her a tour of the lab on the ship. Damn, she can’t get anything right today. 

“No, I just thought that ours would be bigger, right?”

Yvie narrows her eyes and looks at Trixie.

“You’re such an asshole,” Trixie mutters to Vanessa with a smirk, followed by another glare from A’keria. 

-x-

Throughout the simulation, Vanessa learns three things. 

Firstly, that Yvie and Scarlet live together, but that they aren’t  _ together  _ together. And if you accidentally assume that they’re together because of the domesticity of the way they talk about what time they’re driving home, or whose cooking dinner, you create a very uncomfortable and tension filled room. 

Secondly, that the child sitting on A’keria’s lap is her son. Or, her isn’t her son. He’s her adopted son, maybe? He can’t seem to decide whether he wants to call her ‘mom’ or ‘Kiki’ and he’s been flicking between the two. But whether he’s her son or not, the one thing that Vanessa knows for sure is that he’s a lot braver than she is. Which brings her on to the final thing that she’s learned. 

She knows she’s going to be a nervous wreck when they take off. 

During the simulation, logically, Vanessa knows that they aren’t leaving the ground. Their seats shake slightly, to simulate the engine whirring beneath them, so they have to be strapped in, but they’re still in the same room. Still on in the building. Still on Earth. Definitely not in space. 

But still, she holds her breath when the countdown begins. She listens through her earpiece as Yvie says a lot of different words that she doesn’t understand. She grips the armrests of her chair and realises that at the exact place where her nails meet the padding, the material is already frayed. Maybe irrational fear during simulated flights is a universal experience?

She glances to the Command chair in the centre of the room, where Brooke will be sitting, and she tries to imagine her sitting there now, nodding her head reassuringly and promising that they’re going to be okay. 

Vanessa worries that Trixie is going to laugh at her for being afraid, but when she looks over, beneath all the layers of makeup, Trixie looks a little pale too.

-x- 

When the simulation ends, she feels like she needs to spend a very long time doing not much at all, but then her google calendar so helpfully reminds her that today is the last day of the deadline to draw up a list of the equipment that she needs for the mission along with prices, so that she can leave it on Brooke’s desk by the end of the day. 

Vanessa tells herself that the list is very nearly finished, but realistically she knows that it isn’t, and that she’s going to have to spend the rest of the day working to get it completed on time. 

Her inability to sit down and complete a task in front of her without branching off into several sub-tasks in the meantime has always been a vice of hers. She wouldn’t strictly call it procrastination, because it’s not like she is actively trying to put off the work she needs to do. She just isn’t particularly good at sitting still. Or concentrating. Or pulling her mind away from hyper fixating on a task that she absolutely has to do before she spontaneously combusts. 

Kids these days get medically diagnosed for this type of thing, but when she’d been a kid there’d been no help for her. Her teachers had always shrugged it off with a nonchalant ‘that’s Vanessa for you.’

At noon, she’s just about managed to make it to the half-way mark on her list. She realises that it’s actually quite difficult to anticipate anything that you may need for an eight month long trip, whilst being mindful of the lack of storage and weight allowance onboard. She’s about to reward herself with a break, when an email notification pops up on her screen. 

**BLHytes** [12:09pm] Cadet Mateo, I trust you have not forgotten the 5pm deadline for your inventory requests. Regards, Commander Hytes. 

Vanessa types out a hasty response. 

**MissVanjie** [12:11pm] All good here, ma’am. Just finishing up now. Also, Vanessa is fine by the way.

Once she’s sent the message, she decides that lunch can wait, but unfortunately, her poor impulse control means that she gets sidelined with reading an article about the world's tallest tropical tree instead of working out the optimal amount of glass slides that she’s going to need. 

At three, she gets a call on her mobile.

“Cadet Mateo?”

“Commander,” Vanessa smiles. 

“The list?”

“I’m gonna set off to your office in like two minutes I swear.”

She hears Brooke sigh softly and can't shake the gut wrenching feeling that she’s disappointing her. The fact that she can’t just fucking focus is killing her. 

“Brooke I’m sorry, I don’t know why this is taking me so long. I just really don't wanna mess up and I know that you’re waiting for me so that makes me even more stressed and-“

“It’s okay. It’s fine,” Brooke tells her softly. “Come to my office now and I’ll help you. Bring a copy of your project proposal.”

“Are you sure-“

“I’m sure. But hurry, we need to have this finished by five.”

Vanessa feels as though she should be embarrassed by needing her boss to help her finish her work on time, but when the phone call ends, there’s something about the way Brooke has said ‘we’ in reference to her project that leaves Vanessa with a soft smile on her face. 

-x-

She arrives at Brooke’s office in record time, and only manages one knock on the door before Brooke calls her inside. As she enters, Brooke gestures to the empty chair that she has pulled up beside her, so that they can both see the computer screen at the same time. 

“Sorry, I hope you don’t mind, I made a start already.”

On Brooke’s computer, Vanessa’s proposal takes up half of the screen and on the other side, there’s a checklist of lab equipment. Like a nerdy version of online shopping. 

“Damn I didn’t know you could do it like this.”

Previously, Vanessa had been selecting each item and searching for its price individually, but Brooke’s way seems so much easier. 

Brooke shrugs and shifts her chair over slightly so that Vanessa can see the screen at a better angle, and as she does, she adjusts the sleek, black framed glasses on her face. And Vanessa takes a sharp breath in, because she’s always recognised Brooke to be attractive, but this is something else entirely. 

Vanessa has never really had a ‘type’. She likes who she likes. But something that she can’t resist is intelligence. A person who is smart and driven and focused. Goal oriented. A person who knows what they want and how to get it. 

All those months ago, when Brooke had walked into her home and told her that she’s going to space, without giving her any legitimate option to decline, being attracted to her had been hard to resist. But now, watching her work, brow furrowed with concentration, hair pulled back into a ponytail, lips slightly parted, it’s downright impossible to not feel flustered. 

“You smell nice,” Brooke tells her, without looking up. 

Vanessa’s cheeks redden. “Thanks, it’s um, perfume.”

Brooke grins slightly. “I know.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course you know,” Vanessa stammers, turning redder by the second. 

“You didn’t reply to the group emails,” Vanessa tells her after another few minutes of silence. 

Brooke huffs out a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s not really my thing.”

Vanessa frowns. “Getting to know your teammates ain’t your  _ thing _ ?”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Vanessa, but I’m not very well liked around here.”

She has noticed. It’s impossible not to. But so far, she can’t understand why. She doesn’t know Brooke well, but she’s never done anything wrong that she knows of. 

Maybe Brooke is terribly misunderstood, or maybe she’s a monster and Vanessa just doesn’t know it yet. 

-x- 

By the time they finish the list, it’s almost a quarter to five. Brooke sets the list to print and checks the smartwatch on her wrist. 

“Fuck. Okay, I need you to sign and date those papers when they’ve printed. I’ll be right back.”

She stands from the desk, grabs her purse from the floor and heads into the en-suite bathroom. 

Vanessa does as she’s told, signing the documents and leaving them neatly stacked on Brooke’s desk. She’s wondering if she should take Brooke’s sudden disappearance as her que to leave, when the door to the bathroom swings open and Brooke re-enters the room.

Vanessa is dangerously unprepared for what she sees. 

She’s wearing a dress that by all accounts ought to be very professional, given it’s respectable length and lack of cleavage, but there’s something about the way that Brooke carries the dress that makes it seem so very scandalous. The material seems to cling to her, like a second skin. The newly exposed curve of her biceps are enticing, practically begging Vanessa to wonder how strong her arms are. Her long blonde hair now falls past her shoulders in loose waves. Vanessa’s fingers itch to be tangled amongst the curls. 

Vanessa realises that she may have been staring when Brooke clears her throat. 

“Did you sign the-“

“I have the papers here-“

They both start to speak at the same time, then apologise for cutting one another off. 

A thick silence hangs in the air between them. 

“Are you going on a date or somethin?” 

The question tumbles from Vanessa’s lips too rapidly for her to stop it. She’s never been good at controlling her impulses. 

Brooke laughs and shakes her head, as though Vanessa had just asked her if she’s going to have tea with the Queen of England.

“I’m going to an investors meeting to justify why I’ve asked for extra funding to take one more crew member than originally planned.” 

Trying to push aside the fact that Brooke has seemed so amused at the thought of going on a date, Vanessa smiles internally when she realises that Trixie must be the extra crew member, so she must have passed her tests. 

“Why, how much is it going to cost?”

“About thirty thousand dollars-“

“That ain’t much-“

“Per day.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah.”

For a moment, neither of them speak, and they’re left staring at one another. Vanessa wonders if whatever this thing is - the tension, the nerves, the anticipation - can Brooke feel it too?

Brooke steps a little closer, heels clacking on the ground, their height difference more pronounced with every step. 

“Would you mind?” Brooke asks softly, shifting her hair away from her back and turning so that Vanessa can see her zipper is only fastened up to her mid back. 

Vanessa swallows nervously. “Um, sure.”

Her hands fumble as she reaches for the zipper, because she can’t tear her mind away from imagining what it would be like to drag her hand down instead of up. The zip snags because Vanessa can’t concentrate. The gentle brush of Brooke’s skin beneath her knuckles is too soft for her to ever be able to concentrate again. 

“Sorry,” Vanessa tells her quietly after her second attempt. 

When Brooke turns back round to face her, they’re standing far too close, and yet somehow not close enough. Brooke is looking down at her and Vanessa swallows nervously once more, but then Brooke takes a step back and the moment - if it really was a moment - is broken. 

“Thank you, Cadet,” Brooke tells her, bringing Vanessa crashing back down to reality. 

Brooke is her boss. This isn’t going to happen. This isn’t  _ allowed  _ to happen. There’s nothing going on here. Nothing at all.

“You should send an email to the group. Everyone would like it.”

Brooke raises a solitary eyebrow. “Everyone.”

“Me,” Vanessa corrects. “I’d like it.”

She nods her head once, indicating that she might think about it. 

-x-

Later that evening, when Vanessa gets home, she’s still thinking about her proximity to Brooke. The way that she could see every individual eyelash. The way that she’d felt a bolt of energy surge through her as she’d handed her the papers from the desk and their fingertips brushed. How, when she’d watched Brooke walk away, the gentle sway of her hips had been cruelly captivating. 

She’s fixated on Brooke so intently that when an email notification pops up on her home screen and she sees Brooke’s name, she thinks its her mind playing tricks on her. But it isn’t. 

**BLHytes** [7:43pm] to  **Artemis Crew**

_ Dear All,  _

_ Please accept my apologies for not participating in your group emails at an earlier date. I look forward to getting to know each one of you, and I trust that, thanks to your talents, the Artemis mission will run with unparalleled success.  _

_ I would also like to introduce you to our latest and final crew member, Engineer Trixie Mattel, whose email address I have included.  _

_ As of today, we have six weeks until we depart to the Houston Training Centre. I trust you will make effective use of your time between now and then.  _

_ My office on campus is always open, feel free to drop by.  _

_ Warm Regards, _

_ Mission Commander B.L. Hytes.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think, either here, or over on tumblr. Any and all feedback is appreciated! 
> 
> The next chapter will be Yvie 1.

**Author's Note:**

> The much anticipated space fic has finally arrived! Get ready for a long one, folks. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think of the first chapter! I would love to hear from you, either in the comments or over on tumblr at youre-a-kite (where you can also find some groovy concept art). 
> 
> Thanks so much for reading!


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